We consider the lossy quantum source coding problem, where the task is to compress a given quantum source below its von Neumann entropy. Inspired by the duality connections between the rate-distortion and channel coding problems in the classical setting, we propose a new formulation for the lossy quantum source coding problem. This formulation differs from the existing quantum rate-distortion theory in two aspects. Firstly, we require that the reconstruction of the compressed quantum source fulfill a global error constraint as opposed to the sample-wise local error criterion used in the standard rate-distortion setting. Secondly, to measure the reconstruction error, instead of a distortion observable, we employ the notion of a backward quantum channel which we refer to as a “posterior reference map”. Using these, we characterize the asymptotic performance limit in terms of single-letter coherent information of the given posterior reference map. We also develop analogous formulations for the quantum-classical and classical variants and characterize their asymptotic performance limits in terms of single-letter mutual information quantities with respect to appropriately defined channels analogous to the posterior reference map. We also provide various examples for the three formulations, and shed light on their connection to the standard rate-distortion formulation wherever possible.
We consider the lossy quantum source coding problem, where the task is to compress a given quantum source below its von Neumann entropy. Inspired by the duality connections between the rate-distortion and channel coding problems in the classical setting, we propose a new formulation for the lossy quantum source coding problem. This formulation differs from the existing quantum rate-distortion theory in two aspects. Firstly, we require that the reconstruction of the compressed quantum source fulfill a global error constraint as opposed to the sample-wise local error criterion used in the standard rate-distortion setting. Secondly, to measure the reconstruction error, instead of a distortion observable, we employ the notion of a backward quantum channel which we refer to as a “posterior reference map”. Using these, we characterize the asymptotic performance limit in terms of single-letter coherent information of the given posterior reference map. We also develop analogous formulations for the quantum-classical and classical variants and characterize their asymptotic performance limits in terms of single-letter mutual information quantities with respect to appropriately defined channels analogous to the posterior reference map. We also provide various examples for the three formulations, and shed light on their connection to the standard rate-distortion formulation wherever possible.
In this work, we address the lossy quantum-classical (QC) source coding problem, where the task is to compress the classical information about a quantum source, obtained after performing a measurement, below the Shannon entropy of the measurement outcomes, while incurring a bounded reconstruction error. We propose a new formulation, namely, "rate-channel theory", for the lossy QC source coding problem based on the notion of a backward (posterior) channel. We employ a single-letter posterior channel to capture the reconstruction error in place of the single-letter distortion observable. The formulation requires the reconstruction of the compressed quantum source to satisfy a block error constraint as opposed to the average single-letter distortion criterion in the rate-distortion setting. We also develop an analogous formulation for the classical variant with respect to a corresponding posterior channel. Furthermore, we characterize the asymptotic performance limit of the lossy QC and classical source coding problems in terms of single-letter quantum mutual information and mutual information quantities of the given posterior channel, respectively. We provide examples for the above formulations.
In this work, we address the lossy quantum-classical source coding with the quantum side-information (QC-QSI) problem. The task is to compress the classical information about a quantum source, obtained after performing a measurement while incurring a bounded reconstruction error. Here, the decoder is allowed to use the side information to recover the classical data obtained from measurements on the source states. We introduce a new formulation based on a backward (posterior) channel, replacing the single-letter distortion observable with a single-letter posterior channel to capture reconstruction error. Unlike the rate-distortion framework, this formulation imposes a block error constraint. An analogous formulation is developed for lossy classical source coding with classical side information (C-CSI) problem. We derive an inner bound on the asymptotic performance limit in terms of single-letter quantum and classical mutual information quantities of the given posterior channel for QC-QSI and C-CSI cases, respectively. Furthermore, we establish a connection between rate-distortion and rate-channel theory, showing that a rate-channel compression protocol attains the optimal rate-distortion function for a specific distortion measure and level.
We derive quantum counterparts of two key theorems of classical information theory, namely, the rate-distortion theorem and the source-channel separation theorem. The rate-distortion theorem gives the ultimate limits on lossy data compression, and the source-channel separation theorem implies that a two-stage protocol consisting of compression and channel coding is optimal for transmitting a memoryless source over a memoryless channel. In spite of their importance in the classical domain, there has been surprisingly little work in these areas for quantum information theory. In this paper, we prove that the quantum rate-distortion function is given in terms of the regularized entanglement of purification. We also determine a single-letter expression for the entanglement-assisted quantum rate-distortion function, and we prove that it serves as a lower bound on the unassisted quantum rate-distortion function. This implies that the unassisted quantum rate-distortion function is nonnegative and generally not equal to the coherent information between the source and distorted output (in spite of Barnum's conjecture that the coherent information would be relevant here). Moreover, we prove several quantum source-channel separation theorems. The strongest of these are in the entanglement-assisted setting, in which we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for transmitting a memoryless source over a memoryless quantum channel up to a given distortion.
Quantum algorithms require quantum computers performing logical operations on a sufficiently large number of entangled qubits. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art quantum computers can only operate on tens of qubits. A solution to this scalability challenge is to employ the distributed paradigm, where a network of small-scale quantum computers are used in a distributed manner. It is the aim of my work to study the fundamental limits of distributed quantum problems and to further enhance their performance by exploiting the structure inherent to these problems employing asymptotically good Algebraic codes. This thesis consists of two parts. The first part studies the task of faithfully simulating a distributed quantum measurement, wherein we provide a protocol for the three parties, Alice, Bob and {Charlie}, to simulate a repeated action of a distributed quantum measurement using a pair of non-product approximating measurements by Alice and Bob, followed by a stochastic mapping at {Charlie}. The objective of the protocol is to utilize minimum resources, in terms of classical bits needed by Alice and Bob to communicate their measurement outcomes to {Charlie}, and the common randomness shared among the three parties, while faithfully simulating independent repeated instances of the original measurement. We characterize a set of sufficient communication and common randomness rates required for asymptotic simulatability in terms of single-letter quantum information quantities. We further improve the results obtained in the above by exploiting the structure present in the Charlie's stochastic bivariate mapping using random structured POVMs based on asymptotically good algebraic codes. The algebraic structure of these codes is matched to that of the bivariate function that models the action of Charlie. This leads to the computation being performed on the fly, thus obviating the need to reconstruct individual measurement outcomes at Charlie. We provide examples to illustrate the information-theoretic gains attained by endowing POVMs with algebraic structure. As an application of the distributed measurement compression problem, we also demonstrate a multi-party purity distillation protocol. Concluding this part, we consider the lossy quantum source coding problem where the objective is to compress a given quantum source below its von Neumann entropy. Inspired by the duality connections between the rate-distortion and channel coding problems in the classical setting, we propose a new formulation for the lossy quantum source coding problem. We require that the reconstruction of the compressed quantum source fulfill a global error constraint and employ the notion of a ``posterior reference map'' to measure the reconstruction error. Using these, we characterize the asymptotic performance limit of this problem in terms of single-letter coherent information of the given posterior reference map. In the second part of this thesis, we study the advantage algebraic structured codes can provide, to the class of the classical-quantum network problems. In particular, we investigate two problems. Firstly, we consider the problem of communicating a general bivariate function of two classical sources observed at the encoders of a classical-quantum multiple access channel. We propose and analyze a coding scheme based on algebraic structured coset codes that enables the decoder to recover the desired function without recovering the sources themselves. We derive a new set of sufficient conditions that are weaker than the current known for identified examples. In addition, we analyze the performance of these algebraic codes toward studying the capacity of a special class of 3-user classical-quantum interference channel.
We examine the task of privacy amplification from information-theoretic and coding-theoretic points of view. In the former, we give a one-shot characterization of the optimal rate of privacy amplification against classical adversaries in terms of the optimal type-II error in asymmetric hypothesis testing. The converse significantly improves on previous bounds based on smooth min-entropy by Watanabe and Hayashi [7] and turns out to be equivalent to a recent formulation in terms of the Eγ divergence by Yang et al. [9]. In the latter, we show that the protocols for privacy amplification based on linear codes can be easily repurposed for channel simulation. Combined with the known relations between channel simulation and lossy source coding, this implies that the privacy amplification can be understood as a basic primitive for both channel simulation and lossy compression. Applied to symmetric channels or lossy compression settings, our construction leads to protocols of the optimal rate in the asymptotic i.i.d. limit. Finally, appealing to the notion of channel duality recently detailed by us in [15], we show that the linear error-correcting codes for symmetric channels with quantum output can be transformed into linear lossy source coding schemes for classical variables arising from the dual channel. This explains a “curious duality” in these problems for the (self-dual) erasure channel observed by Martinian and Yedidia [16] and partly anticipates recent results on optimal lossy compression by polar and low-density generator matrix codes.